Everyone's got a something they will never sell (Herbs)

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Recently, after finding out I gave up a Principal job to teach him and others English at Hastings Boys', a student said - Eeeehh!!! Sir - why did you do that, to start again at the bottom???

It really was a loud and long EEEHHHHH too.

I guess it does look like that to a student, and from a certain view he's not wrong - I was an English teacher from 1983 to 1989 - the first years of my career. In 1990 I gained a leadership position in an English department and haven't been a full time English teacher for 30 years.  

It could have been a shock being back full time in the classroom but actually it wasn't. It's taken me back to what is vital and important.

I have told many of my former colleagues how much I'm loving the change. I mean it, maan.

As Ryan Holiday says in his book Right Thing, Right Now:

This is a journey that we all must go on too, not just avoiding selfishness and cynicism as we age but making sure we are not hardened by our profession or our circumstances. If time and experience don't make you more generous, less threatened by others and their needs, more openhearted, what kind of life is that? Because it sounds more like a prison, like some kind of curse that an enemy would swear on someone in a tragic play, like the cost of selling your soul.

Last term, I helped a student improve a piece of writing for his writing folio. After he'd finished it, I graded it an Excellence. The honesty of his writing really had a powerful affect on me (the reader).

He will never know how fulfilling that was for me. I never want to lose that feeling.